advice pls: best gaming rig for under $1500

Hey guys,

I think it's time to upgrade comps since my current laptop is now 3 yrs old and crashes a lot when I try to run really high end stuff. I'm looking to spend around $1000-1500, would consider going a little higher if it's really worth it. I'll spell out what I'm looking for, and would appreciate any advice you guys have for me.

1) laptop or desktop, if the desktop gets me significantly more bang for the buck

2) needs to run windows since I'm a gamer

3) do not care that much about battery life, weight, or screen size if it's a laptop

4) needs to run Aion smoothly - aka strong processor, vid card, and ram

5) don't need much harddrive space - I have a 1 terrabyte external so I can do as little as like 40gigs on the computer's harddrive itself

6) I don't want it to be obsolete for at least 2 years...

Two systems I'm looking at now are:

Asus $1150 model, 17.1" screen, intel core 2 duo processor P8700, 6GB memory, 500gb HD, GeForce GTX 260M with 1GB DDR3 memory

One of these Gateway laptops: http://www.gateway.com/systems/series/529598056.php

Thanks in advance for the help!

First question would be, does monitor/keyboard/mouse include that 1000-1500$ Price range? Second being, do you want prebuilt which is usually more expensive or are you willing to put it together yourself?

Also I'm a big fan of desktops, I feel cool and manly when I power up my desktop and my 20 fans go vroooooom. Also I do believe you can fit more stuff in them for cheaper than a laptop.

I've got a monitor/keyboard/mouse I can use with it. I'd prefer prebuilt if it makes any sense, not too much of a techie here and would probably mess things up building on my own

back to school sales should be starting in a few weeks if you can wait. check fatwallet.com or slickdeals for sales. You can get a decent gaming laptop for under 1k when they go on sale. makesure whatever you get comes with the free windows 7 upgrade. i think if it comes with vista basic, you do not get the upgrade.
as far as desktop, any decent 2.8ghz duo core will work. You might have to add ram and a good video card, but parts are cheap nowadays. $100 will get you a video card that can play most games well.

50USD will get you a good graphics card tbh.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220563 This laptop is pretty good. Asus is <3

Do you really want a laptop? If you go for a desktop you're gonna get like 2x the power for half price and upgrade-ability in the future.

If this is actually the case, desktop is fine. I am completely ok though in terms of upgrades just buying a new machine in a few years. My current laptop + iphone mean I'm mobile enough without a new laptop. Need to basically maximize my money while getting something that will run Aion smoothly. If I can do that on a laptop, that's preferred. if not, desktop will do

Desktop is going to be much more cost-efficient and it will be upgradable.

Due to the ridiculous rate of advancement in tech, you're better off putting most of your money into stuff you don't plan to upgrade right away like a big HDTV or a kickbutt soundsystem. What are you planning to use as a screen (I'd recommend a 24" as a minimum given your pricerange)? (If you go prebuilt you may have to stick with less, but given how much the parts themselves cost..)

If you get a good, fast SSD (Intel X25, OCZ Vertex) - Windows will boot much faster, your programs will load much faster, and saved games / game maps will load/start much faster. However, it will cost you about $200 for a 60 gig drive (for the Vertex). Whether you want to go that route is up to you.

Basically what it sounds like is you want a gaming rig, go desktop for that aspect. More than likely a 3 year old laptop can still function on the fly or at school to write papers or watch the odd ball videos/movies.

I died at the 24in screen comment >__> Mainly because I can't focus on anything over 19in MAYBE 22. I kinda fail to see how 24" Monitor is right in the price range though, unless they've drastically dropped in price you're not going to find a 2-3ms 24" for cheap. Could get away with a out of box. I got my 19in 2ms for about 100$, and picked up the cables from radio shack for like 20$.

Going to Dell or HP and picking a semi barebones computer (Dont pick xps...) and just customizing it from there is easy. Probably should get a dual core with 2.8GHz+ and 4GB of RAM. Would suggest not getting a card with the pre-built, and buying one off newegg. A different PSU would be a good idea too. 900W ftw.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130390 is a decent cheapish card. o; I just bought one for my desktop as a recommendation from a friend. It should have no problems running Aion.

the 9400 GT is nearly 2 full generations old - spend the extra money and get a good - great video card that will last you for a few years. With a $1500 budget there is no need to cut yourself short.

I had a lot of problems with some of the newer cards :P I'd much prefer to spend the 50 dollars now, and have it work for what I'd like it to than to spend the 100+ to get something shiny. You're right though, with the budget there really isn't a reason not to get the shiny.

Also my poor little 7300GT lasted me 4 years. ;( Dun hate on old cards. <3

definitely get desktop, they are much more cost efficient, as well as future upgradable. As for SSD drives your not gonna find cheap ones for anything with even remotely large space. Even 16 gigs are very expensive like $50. they are much faster if you plan on storing the OS in there for faster booting but your definitely not gonna fit too many games in one. so its simply not worth the money.

Ok so... desktop it is. I have an LCD 22" monitor that I actually got a few years ago, works well and I don't need a new one there.

So literally to build the computer itself... best way to maximize 1-1.5k on a machine is? I like the idea of buying a desktop prebuilt and then upgrading individual parts if that is cheaper. I do not need to scrimp on things, but if for example a $200 video card runs almost exactly as well as the $500 one, I'll go cheaper.

I'm sorry to ask such specific questions, but literally have zero experience building a comp and have generally just had friends (and helpful ppl on forums like this) help in selecting my previous computers. So it would actually really help for someone to spell out what they would buy - how much of what kind of memory, what kind of harddrive from which maker (remember I don't need more than 40gigs), etc.

Thanks again

If you were planning on runnign the bulk of your files and programs off of an external I would suggest that you not do that fopr gaming unless you have an E-SATA external.... the speed may not be much faster, but it does make some difference. Get a 15000 spindle speed HDD around 200GB and play GAmes of that (what I would do anyways).

Does your budget include an OS or do you have that already?

I was planning to install games to the computer's harddrive, keep movies and other random files on the external. If it is not much more expensive to add space to the harddrive, then I'd go up. Definitely don't need more than 100gigs though. And speed is more important to me on the drive than space.

OS is dicey. I've got XP I can put on it. Would like to get Windows 7 when it comes out though, which I guess is one of the things in favor of the pre built machines since they offer a free upgrade to windows 7.

Honestly, if I were building the machine I'd go drop $800 on a 50" HDTV and spend the rest on the computer. What are you looking for? A dual or cheap quad CPU will give you whatever you need. A cheap video card (radeon 4850, 4870, maybe a 4890) will be more than enough to power a 22" monitor. RAM is so cheap it's basically free.. etc etc etc. Unless you've got money to burn, figure out exactly what you want from the computer first.

In terms of just performing well and gaming / whatever speedily, you're looking at $500-700 for the actual computer.. what do you want on top of that?

Probably want to find something with an AMD 720 and Gigabyte motherboard. DDR2 or DDR3 wont matter for gaming, just make sure to get 4gb of RAM.

If you don't want it to be obsolete for at least 2 years, you should probably wait for DX11 GPUs to release later this Fall. Just a word of friendly advice. Oh, that and Core i5. Lynnfield is a little ass kicker

Any idea when specifically? I need it by sept 20 for aion haha